A "multi-craftual's" ramblings, finished projects and good intentions.

Posts Tagged ‘sewing’

Today is the 16th consecutive day that we have received rain. Only lack 4″ of receiving the average yearly total. I’m beginning to think it might be a good idea to turn the back raised garden bed into a Koi pond. Bill added 12 bags of topsoil last week and it still flooded. The cantaloupe plants were swimming. We are having a cookout on the 4th of July. It would be nice if the sun came out and dried things up a bit.

Haven’t been doing much. Friend Ann was on call last weekend so she stayed in the city. Saturday we checked out the new yarn shop in Norman, it’s called Yarn & Loops. They have a lot of really nice yarn, but sock and lace yarns were limited. I did find some mottled grey sock yarn that pleaded to come home with me. Then we went to Patchwork Place where I found the perfect fabric for the snowball blocks of my Tennessee Waltz quilt. We checked out a scrapbook store and then to a nursery/landscape place. I finally found some Rosemary to replace the one that drowned. Oh, we fit Hobby Lobby in there somewhere too.

Yesterday I made a tablecloth for the 4th cookout. Mindless sewing, just serged the edges and then topstitched. Haven’t knit much in the past few days, joint pain in my fingers and wrists. Also why I haven’t posted much either.

I’m off to put the new Rosemary plant in a pot. There’s no way I’m going to put it in the “swampy” herb garden. At least, not for a while.

A good time was had by all, if you don’t count the night visitors rustling in the wall and the mysterious critter bite that had Marilyn jumping out of bed. Of course being the well adjusted people that we are, we made jokes about it.

We arrived at Canyon Camp Friday afternoon, and started setting up our little sewing areas.

For dinner we drove into Hinton for our usual Friday night mexican dinner. I don’t remember the name of the restaurant, but they have very good food at great prices, and they always smile when they are invaded twice a year by a large group of crazy ladies.

The project for this retreat was String or Strip Quilts. After dinner everyone piled their precut fabric strips on a table and the swapping and sewing began.

Last fall everyone brought fall themed blocks to retreat. For every block you brought, you got your name added to the pot for a drawing. Sharron won the blocks, and was supposed to put them together in a quilt top and bring it back to show at spring retreat. Here is Sharron and the fall blocks.

She had blocks left over, so a name was drawn for the remaining blocks. For this retreat, everyone made snowman themed blocks. I like Sharron’s “Snowman Embryo”, the snowflake block.

There were enough blocks to divide and draw 2 names. The winners were Jan and Sharron.

The camp feeds us 3 meals on Saturday and 2 meals on Sunday. For some reason we always think we’re going to starve or there will be some major catastrophe, like the kitchen burning down while we’re there. We are getting better though, this is about half of what we used to bring.

With all of the eating, laughing and discussions of “Snail Sex”, (don’t ask) some actual sewing took place.

Diane’s Spiderwebs

Jan’s Strip Quilt – I can’t remember the pattern name.

Marilyn’s Strippy Sunflowers

Melissa’s Spiderwebs

Sharron’s Strippy Center Medallion

Virginia’s Pastel Strippy Baby Quilt in progress

I decided that I really needed to work on a project that I have been working on at the last 2 retreats. I did go ahead and trade strips with everyone because eventually I do want to make a string quilt. So I spent the weekend making 18 star blocks for my Tennessee Waltz quilt. I have them pinned on the wall with the snowball blocks between and have decided that I don’t like the bright coral color originally chosen for the snowball corners. It’s too bright and dominates everything. Thinking of going with a paler dusty orange.

Due to illness and work, some of the Skrappies couldn’t attend and were really missed. Hopefully they can go to retreat in the fall. The pattern chosen for fall retreat is “Rancher’s Daughter” on Debbie Caffrey’s site. The theme for the quilt block drawing will be Angels.

Like this:

Last night while I was watching TV and knitting on Steven’s hat, the thought crossed my mind that I hadn’t unpacked my sewing thread. Where is it? I have unpacked all the boxes marked sewing room, hall closet, nick knacks and misc. Also, I haven’t seen my stash of terrycloth. There are still a lot of boxes in the guest room, but they are all marked “Master Closet”. Except for one that’s marked Hutch Closet. I wonder. Sure enough. There’s the thread, my dyes, paints, ribbon, sewing machine feet and assorted other sewing/craft items. I have to re-sort and arrange things to accommodate these items.

Like this:

Donna said that I had to show a picture of my holiday spirit. This is the bottom half of my tree. That’s as far as my decorating got. D added the musical reindeer that I gave her, to try and get her in the christmas spirit. Below is how my tree looked before she went home.

She put on the tree top and arranged the branches. Now I just have to put on the lights and decorate it.

54 is the number of tamales that we made yesterday. They turned out pretty well. The meat mixture was really good. We decided that it would be worth it just to make a large batch of the meat filling, divide into small batches and freeze for later use. Like tacos, burritos, etc…….

Like this:

Just got back from Office Depot and I think I may have found my new sewing table. It’s wide enough for both my sewing machine and serger with room for me to roll my chair from one to the other. The table has a melamine laminate top with rounded edges and is very sturdy. Added bonus is that it is gray and will match my chair.